Another car rental nightmare

moneytroll

One nightmare after another…

This time it’s to do with embossed credit card numbers. I had no idea that some car rentals don’t accept the new credit cards which don’t have embossed numbers!!

After arriving at the destination, the car hire wanted to charge 4 times the price if I wanted to use a credit card without the embossed/sticking out numbers! 

It seems to be in the small print of terms and conditions of the 3rd party I again made the stupid mistake of booking through (Carflexi: please avoid them like the plague. The customer service was laughing at my complaint that I was stupid enough not to read the small print).

I paid them a fee of £15 for the booking online, luckily nothing else (but had to make other, more expensive arrangements at the airport and am now without a car for two weeks). They won’t refund it (because of T&Cs); can I get it back from Amex? (Which is the card I used). 

Again it’s a small amount but it makes my blood boil that these rental companies keep coming up with new loopholes to charge customers! (In fact their website or the voucher itself or the final car rental company doesn’t say anywhere that the CC needs to have numbers that stick out. It’s buried somewhere deep in the intermediary’s T&Cs which I expect nobody would read).

flaneurs_lobster

Is this requirement because the destination car hire desk still uses multi-part credit card slips with a roller machine?

Where is this place?

moneytroll

flaneurs_lobster said:

Is this requirement because the destination car hire desk still uses multi-part credit card slips with a roller machine?

Where is this place?

Poland. No idea why they have the requirement. But I was told that if I wanted to use a different credit card (with regular numbers) then I'd have to pay 4-5 times the price of my original booking. So its not like they don't have the facility. It just seems to be some kind of a scheme they are running there. Everyone benefits: third party gets to keep the £15 booking fee (and includes this ridiculous requirement) while the car rental company capitalises on desperate customers who often don't have any other option but to pay the ridiculous penalty. Why is nobody regulating this crap?

bagand96

Carflexi are just a broker, they don't set the hire terms, who was the Hire company?  Ultimately the hire firm can make any requirements they like. Have heard of this embossed credit card one before.  Another one is companies in Spain saying you must have an IDP.  Not legally required for UK Licence holders in Spain, but the hire company is free to make it a requirement.

It's often not that they are saying you can have the car for 3 or 4 times more - it's that without meeting the requirements they can't let you have it with the basic insurance/deposit - but they'll let you have it if you take the full Zero Excess insurance package and that's what the extra cost is.

moneytroll said:

Again it’s a small amount but it makes my blood boil that these rental companies keep coming up with new loopholes to charge customers! (In fact their website or the voucher itself or the final car rental company doesn’t say anywhere that the CC needs to have numbers that stick out. It’s buried somewhere deep in the intermediary’s T&Cs which I expect nobody would read).

I do.  Car rental is definitely one of the things i read the T&Cs especially for driver requirements.

And unfortunately you will have agreed that you'd read the T&Cs when you booked the hire.  Both the rental T&Cs and the cancellation terms with Carflexi.

moneytroll

bagand96 said:

Carflexi are just a broker, they don't set the hire terms, who was the Hire company?  Ultimately the hire firm can make any requirements they like. Have heard of this embossed credit card one before.  Another one is companies in Spain saying you must have an IDP.  Not legally required for UK Licence holders in Spain, but the hire company is free to make it a requirement.

It's often not that they are saying you can have the car for 3 or 4 times more - it's that without meeting the requirements they can't let you have it with the basic insurance/deposit - but they'll let you have it if you take the full Zero Excess insurance package and that's what the extra cost is.

moneytroll said:

Again it’s a small amount but it makes my blood boil that these rental companies keep coming up with new loopholes to charge customers! (In fact their website or the voucher itself or the final car rental company doesn’t say anywhere that the CC needs to have numbers that stick out. It’s buried somewhere deep in the intermediary’s T&Cs which I expect nobody would read).

I do.  Car rental is definitely one of the things i read the T&Cs especially for driver requirements.

And unfortunately you will have agreed that you'd read the T&Cs when you booked the hire.  Both the rental T&Cs and the cancellation terms with Carflexi.

Can you not avoid paying excess insurance if you show that you have your own excess insurance?

Also can I claim back the £15 fee I paid from Amex if the car company didn’t let me use the service? (It’s non refundable)

zagfles

It's likely to be a typical excuse to force you to buy their overpriced excess waiver. This is the problem with using third parties/brokers/comparison sites where they get you the cheapest price. Car hire companies try to have the cheapest headline rate, which may not even cover their costs, and then make money by forcing purchase of add ons, or charging for scratches already there, or ridiculous fuel policies etc. Virtually all the problems we see here involve people arranging car hire through third parties. Like with hotels and flights, it's usually best booking direct not via third parties. 

zagfles

moneytroll said:

bagand96 said:

Carflexi are just a broker, they don't set the hire terms, who was the Hire company?  Ultimately the hire firm can make any requirements they like. Have heard of this embossed credit card one before.  Another one is companies in Spain saying you must have an IDP.  Not legally required for UK Licence holders in Spain, but the hire company is free to make it a requirement.

It's often not that they are saying you can have the car for 3 or 4 times more - it's that without meeting the requirements they can't let you have it with the basic insurance/deposit - but they'll let you have it if you take the full Zero Excess insurance package and that's what the extra cost is.

moneytroll said:

Again it’s a small amount but it makes my blood boil that these rental companies keep coming up with new loopholes to charge customers! (In fact their website or the voucher itself or the final car rental company doesn’t say anywhere that the CC needs to have numbers that stick out. It’s buried somewhere deep in the intermediary’s T&Cs which I expect nobody would read).

I do.  Car rental is definitely one of the things i read the T&Cs especially for driver requirements.

And unfortunately you will have agreed that you'd read the T&Cs when you booked the hire.  Both the rental T&Cs and the cancellation terms with Carflexi.

Can you not avoid paying excess insurance if you show that you have your own excess insurance?

Also can I claim back the £15 fee I paid from Amex if the car company didn’t let me use the service? (It’s non refundable)

You don't need to show you have excess insurance, the car hire company will usually say they don't recognise it, but that's irrelevant, because it covers you not them. If there was a claim the car hire company will charge you and you'd claim from the excess insurer. So the car hire company will usually want to reserve the amount of the excess on your CC. 

The issue here is that car hire companies want to sell their own excess cover because they probably make more money on that than the car hire, so they'll come up with any old excuse to force you buy it. It's perfectly possible to reserve an amount on a non embossed CC, hotels, pay at pump petrol stations etc do it all the time. 

You could try a claim from Amex. May not succeed, but for a small amount like that Amex may just take the hit anyway. 

bagand96

moneytroll said:

Can you not avoid paying excess insurance if you show that you have your own excess insurance?

Normally it doesn't matter. They'll try and sell you their own but you just need to be firm and decline it as @zagfles says.

However the problem you have in this situation is that they you didn't comply with the terms of the rental, so they're within their rights to say you can't have the car. If they then offer to let you have the car by taking their insurance, that's up to them - they'll say their covering their risk that way.

moneytroll said:

Also can I claim back the £15 fee I paid from Amex if the car company didn’t let me use the service? (It’s non refundable)

It should fail. You didn't comply with the terms of the rental. Unless Amex just take the hit as it's a small amount - and all their other customers are paying it for you.

I understand you feel the T&Cs were unreasonable, but in this situation you agreed to the T&Cs and then didn't comply. Neither Carflexi or the unnamed rental firm are in the wrong. 

heatherw_01

Heard some people say some hotels are the same which is very odd, but yes I have heard that numerous car rental places require embossed cards still in 2025 which is crazy as more and more are not embossing numbers.

I even have a card with no numbers or name on at all which is meant to be for security reasons.

I now always read the terms to see if it is in there as if its not in there and if they said I needed an embossed card, I would be ready to quote their own terms back to them.

DullGreyGuy

moneytroll said:

bagand96 said:

Carflexi are just a broker, they don't set the hire terms, who was the Hire company?  Ultimately the hire firm can make any requirements they like. Have heard of this embossed credit card one before.  Another one is companies in Spain saying you must have an IDP.  Not legally required for UK Licence holders in Spain, but the hire company is free to make it a requirement.

It's often not that they are saying you can have the car for 3 or 4 times more - it's that without meeting the requirements they can't let you have it with the basic insurance/deposit - but they'll let you have it if you take the full Zero Excess insurance package and that's what the extra cost is.

moneytroll said:

Again it’s a small amount but it makes my blood boil that these rental companies keep coming up with new loopholes to charge customers! (In fact their website or the voucher itself or the final car rental company doesn’t say anywhere that the CC needs to have numbers that stick out. It’s buried somewhere deep in the intermediary’s T&Cs which I expect nobody would read).

I do.  Car rental is definitely one of the things i read the T&Cs especially for driver requirements.

And unfortunately you will have agreed that you'd read the T&Cs when you booked the hire.  Both the rental T&Cs and the cancellation terms with Carflexi.

Can you not avoid paying excess insurance if you show that you have your own excess insurance?

Also can I claim back the £15 fee I paid from Amex if the car company didn’t let me use the service? (It’s non refundable)

Difference between theirs and your own XS insurance is that with the former they get paid directly by the insurer (if its actually insurance, normally its a waiver not insurance) whereas with your own you have to pay it first and then reclaim it so in principle they are still exposed to your card bouncing the payment request. 

No idea how a card embossing in anyway changes the risk they are taking, but there is at least one firm in Spain and Romania that has also been playing the same trick based on threads on here. 

Ultimately read the terms properly before buying is the safest approach. 

moneytroll said:
I paid them a fee of £15 for the booking online, luckily nothing else (but had to make other, more expensive arrangements at the airport and am now without a car for two weeks). They won’t refund it (because of T&Cs); can I get it back from Amex? (Which is the card I used). 

You have no grounds for a refund based on your not reading the terms properly. That said AmEx has personally refunded me on two occasions for very low transaction values saying it wasnt worth their time/effort doing a chargeback. 

moneytroll

bagand96 said:

moneytroll said:

Can you not avoid paying excess insurance if you show that you have your own excess insurance?

Normally it doesn't matter. They'll try and sell you their own but you just need to be firm and decline it as @zagfles says.

However the problem you have in this situation is that they you didn't comply with the terms of the rental, so they're within their rights to say you can't have the car. If they then offer to let you have the car by taking their insurance, that's up to them - they'll say their covering their risk that way.

moneytroll said:

Also can I claim back the £15 fee I paid from Amex if the car company didn’t let me use the service? (It’s non refundable)

It should fail. You didn't comply with the terms of the rental. Unless Amex just take the hit as it's a small amount - and all their other customers are paying it for you.

I understand you feel the T&Cs were unreasonable, but in this situation you agreed to the T&Cs and then didn't comply. Neither Carflexi or the unnamed rental firm are in the wrong. 

Is there a point at which TCs themselves can be disputed as ridiculous or unreasonable? If the company states "the rental company can refuse you the car for any reason, including if the sky is cloudy that day"; just because you couldnt imagine they could put in something that stupid, you should just take the hit?